Interview with Lead Designer for World of Tanks Console

Jeff Gregg is World of Tanks for Console’s Lead Designer. As part of the Chicago-Baltimore team, he and Andy Dorizas have been taking to the stage at E3 each day to show the fans World of Tanks on Xbox One. We caught up with Jeff soon after his first stage presentation to chat about the show and the Xbox One.

So, World of Tanks on Xbox One was the first presentation at the show on Tuesday. How was that for you and Andy?

It’s always fun the first day of gamescom because it’s like a tiny crowd of mostly the press and VIPs, which, obviously, has been getting a lot more people very quickly over the years. We had the honor of being the first show on our stage, so that went really well. We had a chance to “kick the tires”, find out how everything was going, see how excited the audience were going to be. It was a real thrill to get on stage and get that flashback of last year—it’s the reason we come here every year. It made me really excited for when it opens to the general public for the next couple of days. And it’s going to keep crescendoing from here. For our first day, it was just a launch-off.

Wargaming is known for giving out a lot of goodies at its stage shows. What kinds of cool things did the World of Tanks on Xbox One team have for fans?

You come out onto the stage just laden with T-shirts—you can’t even see over the mountain of them. We had some really cool tank models that we gave away. There were brand-new gaming mice, really cool mouse pads, a J!NX hoodie and a bunch of bonus codes. We were flinging out all the cards—like a magician.

There have been lots of cool additions and features in World of Tanks on Xbox One. The introduction of Havok, the upgraded visuals and HD tanks are just a few. What kind of topics were you covering in the stage show?

The first half of the presentation was showing a really cool video of a tank that our environment artists put together. It’s about meeting the expectation of our all players, especially with the aesthetics that people expect of the current generation of consoles. You’ve got these amazing-looking tanks—all these HD wiggly bits. There are the environments with grass that gets crushed underneath your treads, roots that get uprooted when you knock over trees. Even new lighting models in the Garage. It’s great to see how everyone appreciates how much effort went into that.

Then we followed that up with interactive play of some of the stuff that was launched with our iteration of the Xbox One version. Features like the new “Proving Grounds” PvE mode, and different ways to both learn the game if you’re new to the experience or want to perfect the game. If you want to take your brand-new Tier 10 Maus against an E-100—or whatever you want to do—we have PvE bots now. It’s great to see the audience gets hyped when you do different kinds of damage to people. It was really interactive and fun. I hope we appeal to both ends of the spectrum there.

A lot of people want hands-on time with the game, so what can they expect when they visit the World of Tanks on Xbox One zone at gamescom?

I think we’re really generous. It’s almost every or every tank. The goal at the zone isn’t to make you progress, it’s to show you the game, let you try it out and show you all the cool stuff. Hopefully the player will go home, download it—it’s free—and have a great time. From the lines I’ve seen, people are really into it. Word of mouth must be going around, because it’s not getting any shorter.

The launch of the game was just over a month ago, and this is World of Tanks on Xbox One’s first major unveiling of the release version at the European EXPO. What’s that been like so far?

It’s been a whirlwind, because we nurtured the launch and it was all hands on deck to make sure everything was okay. A launch is a scary thing. The best plan is “hit the button”. It’s seriously going really well. Right after we launched, we were at GDC and then at gamescom. So these events have literally been a launch pad for us. Presenting it to the public, people playing at home—our numbers of simultaneous people playing online has been insane. People seem to be really devouring it. People in Europe are into it. We’ve seen new players on Xbox One and Xbox 360 too. Word is getting out no matter which machine you have.

We have been the first, as far as I know, for cross-platform compatibility between the Xbox One and Xbox 360, and first for cross-voice, too. For the voice, it was a custom setup that we had to write. That was very important to us, because we don’t want you to care what platform your friends, teammates or enemies are playing on. We just want you to go in there and have the World of Tanks experience. I don’t want you to be worried about what they’re playing on.

It’s been a busy couple of days so far. How do you think the rest of the week is going to progress?

It’s going to be an endurance test. People are going to demand and be excited and want to see everything that we want to show them. I want to make sure that we’re still standing, and we can keep up with this voracious audience. Honestly, gamescom, it’s the trade show of the year for me. I look forward to this. As soon as I’m on the plane home, I’m going to be planning 2016. It means so much to connect with our audience on a very tangible level.

So, what kind of features can we look forward to in the future? Is there anything you are willing to let slip?

Unfortunately we’re being pretty tight-lipped. What I can say is that we're always working on new stuff. New maps; new tanks; introducing new nations. Nothing is off the table. That’s informed by two parts: what we think we want to do, and what is best for the community and what they’re asking for. It’s finding the right balance between these two factors.